THE SOWERS
The hut, which was made of poles leaning against the perpendicular side
of the rocky height, was cool and pleasant to lie in during the heat
of the day. It was mid-afternoon, and why I should have been sleeping
at such a time of day I could not understand. Through the entrance to
the hut I could look across the valley, through which ran a shallow
little river, and could see huts like the one I occupied ranged against
the extending wall of the precipice, and people moving about. For a
moment or two I was lost in mind. Surely I never had seen the valley
and the huts before. I dreamed I had been somewhere else--in a boat
tossing madly on a wild river. But soon my senses returned. I, Scar,
the Strong, was in my own hut, and with my own people, and all was
well. Where was Thin Legs? Where was our boat? How came I to be wearing
a coat of deerskin, and how came I to be wearing leggings of the same
skin? Always had my legs been bare. Then I laughed; for, all at once,
my mind came back to me. I had only dreamed. I was in my own hut, in
the village of my clan, than which there was none more prosperous.
What clan had better homes or better bows and spears and axes in the
hands of better hunters and fisherman living near the broad lake which
lay between the rocky hills sloping downward to the plain and woods,
through which a river led to the not-far-distant sea? The water of the
lake was salt, for the tides came up the river to it; and there were
many fish there, and shell-fish, where the wild things fed. There were
no people who excelled us, and indeed we knew of no other tribes, save
one living far to the south and another which it was said lived still
farther to the westward. We were a satisfied people, remaining long in
one place, though sometimes, in the summer, we abandoned the village
to the women and children and old men, and made hunting trips to where
the great ox, the urus, was more abundant than nearer us, to bring home
the dried meat to make full the winter’s store. Fish from the lake we
had, and dried them, and from the forest the women brought the wild
plums and a sort of apple, and many berries, which also were dried, and
which we ate in winter. Also the women gathered seeds and grains, which
they pounded into a coarse meal, between smooth stones, and this they
mixed with water into cakes, and made that which was good to eat with
the meat and fish, either fresh or dried, as in the winter-time, when
the game might have drifted southward, and the ice was thick upon the
lakes, so that the hunting and fishing were not easy, and starvation
might come had we not the dried things. We were ordinarily provident,
though, for Old Bear, the head of the clan, had wisdom, and his axe was
heavy. He was a huge old man, heavy of aspect, and strong, and rarely
was he disobeyed.
I became more thoroughly awake, and rose from my bed of wolf-skins,
and stretched out my arms, and flexed my muscles, and went out into
the sunlight, and looked about me. I was hungry, and there had come
to my nostrils the odour of roasting meat, as there should have been
that of fish as well. I knew what I should find. There would be Limp,
who lived in a nearby hut, who always rose before me, and prepared
the food, as was right, for was it not I who brought in all save the
fish, for the broken and shortened leg of Limp made him of little use
in the hunt? He could fish well, and do many other things better than
the rest of us. I have heard that it has been always the way with
men, that those who were crippled have been deepest of thought and
discovered most of the new things that have been good for us. The old
men tell us so. And in almost every clan there are cripples; for there
are dangers all about, and it is only natural that some of us should
be killed or at least maimed. Why the maimed should often become the
wisest, I do not know. Perhaps it is because they have more time to
think, and so conceive of new things. It seems to me that must be the
reason. Limp, my closest friend, was full of dreams. He should have had
a wife, instead of living with me, who cared little for women; but the
woman he sought he could not get. I was sorry for Limp, because of his
disappointment over the woman beyond his reach, and told him so; and
sorry also that I could not aid him, and so he had to endure his sorrow
nearly alone, unless it may be that he had the sympathy of old Ox, and
Feather, his wife, whose hut was up the ravine a little way apart from
the village. It had at one side of it an open swarded space, where the
two old people worked together in the sunshine, he fashioning bows and
arrows, and she attending to the drying of the fruits and berries she
had gathered, or grinding the seeds and nuts. Very wise was Feather in
the gathering of seeds. She knew where grew the millet and the wild
barley, and, old as she was, gathered more of those seeds for the
winter than did any other woman of the tribe, though of nuts and fruit
she did not get so much, because she was too old and weak to climb.
So she sought the seeds, though the millet and barley did not grow in
abundance anywhere, and to get the seeds she must often wander far and
search most patiently. It was pretty to see the old man and the woman
working together in the sunshine in the rock-surrounded glade, and Limp
was often with them; for times would come when the whole village was
abandoned,--the men upon the hunt, and the women and children gathering
wood or fruits and nuts, and only these three would be left. I have
said that old Feather was wise--shrewd she was, too--and it may be that
it was she who, being a woman and old, must know the hearts of women,
first gave to Limp the idea from which came the thing he did to help
him toward Little Toes, the woman he so desired.
I have said there was no smell of fish when I awoke. Great fisherman
as Limp was, we had fared without fish, and I had threatened him with
my unstrung bow; but he only laughed and cared not, for he knew that I
would not strike him. For days he had been absent, and I knew not where
he had been; and I did not question him, for that was our way. The hut
people, save in light obedience to the head of the clan, were each a
law unto himself. It chanced, though, that on this day of which I tell,
after I had eaten and again threatened Limp because there was no fish,
I went down the river toward a forest near the lake, and, as I neared
it, saw Limp walking up and down the shore, and stooping often to pick
up something he had found. I ran down to where he was seeking, and
caught him by the shoulders, and shook him, and then laughingly he told
me what he had been doing.
Ever, Limp said, even when he tried to sleep at night, there was the
vision of Little Toes before him--Little Toes, with her necklace of red
berries. He had been sad day and night because neither the father nor
the mother of Little Toes wanted to give her to such as he, who was
lame, and could only fish, and furthermore because another man, whom
they favoured, wanted her. Big Bow, the great hunter, was wooing her;
and she often smiled upon him.
Big Bow had cast eyes on Little Toes, whose father and mother were old
and lazy, and thought he could buy her by gifts of meat and skins,
as well he might; but the goodwill of Little Toes herself must be
considered, for we did not seize upon the women we bought, as was once
the custom, and for Little Toes there were other suitors. Limp, it must
be admitted, was not very fine to look upon. He could talk better than
Big Bow, and women like one who can talk; but he could not bring many
skins or much meat, though of fish he brought abundance. But people
cannot live on fish alone. It seemed that Limp had little chance, and
I, his friend, was sorry for him; but I had not fully considered his
shrewdness and his ways.
Ever the young girls sought to bedeck themselves, that they might be
fair to look upon, and sometimes they would string red berries upon
grass, and hang the loop about the neck, and it was a pretty thing
to see. It could last but for a little time, but, while it lasted, it
was glittering; and ever Little Toes wore such a necklace and much she
grieved that the beautiful thing would wither so soon into hardness and
dullness, and of all this Limp knew well. So it came that he conceived
a thing that was wondrous. He told me of what he had done. He was
walking beside the lake one day, black of mood, thinking of Big Bow,
and of how hard his chances were of getting the woman who seemed so
fair to him. It was as he walked thus--as he told me--that his eyes
rested, at first unseeing, on the shore’s margin, where the creek
tumbled into the lake, and where there was a blaze of colouring as the
sun shone on the tossed-up shells of white and of a glittering pink of
which the lake had many. Somehow they made him think more than ever,
if that were possible, of the red berries around the throat of Little
Toes. Much he thought, he told me, until, suddenly, he knew what it
was that made him see Little Toes with her necklace. The white shells
were like her white skin, and the pink shells were like the berries.
Then came to him a great idea. He ran up and down the shore, gathering
the pink shells and the white ones, and filled his wolfskin pouch with
them, and then ran to his cave, and stayed within it long. So it was
that for many days I had seen so little of him, and had wondered what
he might be doing thus alone.
In a hidden place among the rocks near the lake he was at work with
bits of sandstone and his drill of the hardest flint, working more
eagerly than ever he had worked on spear or arrow-head, and wonderful
things began to show in his strong hands as he so laboured. He was
most patient, as surely he had need to be. He bored each white shell
and each one of the bright pink until there were many of them thus
pierced, and then he rounded and polished them until they glittered
wondrously when he brought them to the light. He marvelled at them
himself. They were wonderful beads. He took a long tendon from the
leg of a great elk which we had killed, such tendon as we used for a
bowstring, and which would last a lifetime, and upon this he strung the
beads, first a pink one and then a white one, and so on to the end. He
knotted the ends of the tendon together, in a knot that could not be
untied, and then held up before his eyes something which no one had
ever seen before--the most glorious shining thing that men had ever
known. It was the first necklace that would not shrink and wither. All
this Limp told me, and showed me what he had made. It was marvellous.
And, after this, the days passed, and he still laboured on the bauble.
But no longer did I reproach him about the fish. My heart was with him,
my lame companion.
And all this time, while Limp had been working in the hiding place in
the rocks, Big Bow had been seeking to gain Little Toes and take her to
his living place. To him, as to Limp, came a new idea. He would make a
gift to the girl. One night, just after the darkness came, Big Bow went
to the cave of Little Toes when he knew that the girl would be alone,
for that was the time that Old Log and Groundnut, his wife, went forth
to gossip in the neighbouring caves. Tossed over one of his shoulders
was the body of a little deer, very fat, that he had killed that day;
and over the other hung down to his very feet a great glossy mass,
which was the most wonderful skin in the world, for it was the skin of
the great cave bear, the only one in the tribe, and had come to Big Bow
because he was foremost in the famous chase and fight when the bear was
killed. The bear put an end to old Chuck that day.
Few words had Big Bow. He laid the deer at the feet of Little Toes, and
then spread out the skin on the ground before her.
“It is yours,” he said. “To-morrow I am coming to take you to my cave.”
Little Toes did not answer at first. She only threw herself down upon
the furry skin, and cuddled herself there.
“It is good,” she said.
Then Big Bow went away.
Soon there was a little sound in the almost darkness, and Limp stood
beside the girl, as Big Bow had done. The fire in the cave blazed up,
and he called her to it. Then from his wolfskin pouch he drew forth
something which flashed and glittered almost like the flying blazing
bugs of the night among the bushes or the shining things in the sky
above. It seemed almost alive. He hung it about her neck. The girl
looked down upon it in speechless amazement. She lifted the beads in
her shaking fingers, but her lips were still. She seemed almost to be
in one of the dreams which come to one sleeping.
“Come with me to my cave, and be my wife,” said Limp.
She did not answer, even then. She only put her hand in his, and they
went out into the night.
They took the bearskin with them.
There is nothing more to tell of the marrying of Limp and Little Toes.
He was with me less. I was sometimes most lonesome without him.
Raging like a bull aurochs was Big Bow when he learned that Little
Toes was lost to him, and that the wonderful skin was lost as well,
and deep were his threats of vengeance upon Limp; but I--I, Scar, the
Strong--told him that I would slay him if evil came to Limp through
him; and he did not dare to hurt him. Not always do the lake people
fight for their friends--we were but rude; but I had for Limp a liking
which was my own, and I am sometimes hard of mood. And soon there
were other necklaces of shell and pebbles, and amulets and anklets of
coloured shells worn by the young women. Very strenuous are lovers.
Never before, as I have said, had the wild people lived so peacefully
nor learned so many things to make the living easier. Fine was the
climate, for even in winter the snows were not too deep nor the cold
too biting, and there were game and fish, and the fruits and nuts
and soft roots of the forest were there in plenty. We were soon to
have them all the more because of the things, as I have said, that we
learned.
Many times had the sun risen since Limp and Little Toes began living in
the hut that Limp builded. And one thing, greatest of all, we found,
because now we feared the winters less.
I have told of old Ox, and of old Feather, his wife, who were friends
of Limp, and who lived alone in a hut above the village, and of how the
woman winnowed and pounded her seeds in an open wide earthy space near
the hut, surrounded on all sides by rocks, and never entered save by
her and Ox, or by the birds of the air. Much she laboured there, being
so patient in her gathering of seeds; and it often chanced that when
gusts of wind came in her winnowing by tossing up the grain in her
hands, some of the seeds would be carried away, and scattered over the
little field, and after that the birds would come to eat them. Many a
bird did old Ox get there with his arrows; for though his eyes were
growing dim, because of age, he still shot very well, for he had been a
master bowman in his day. But it is not of the birds he killed that I
am going to tell, but of another matter concerning the scattered seeds,
and what came at first through no man’s thought or doing, but all by
accident, and later because of the wisdom of old Feather.
All through the autumn Feather had winnowed the great store of seeds
she had gathered, and there was an abundance in the skin bags in the
hut for the winter--both to make into the water cakes, and to trade
for meat or fish. But likewise there remained many seeds missed by the
birds, scattered over the little bare field, which, though amid the
rocks, had a soil which was quite deep, the washings from the heights
above. Then came winter and the snow, and the field was hidden.
And then followed the spring, and the rains and the warm sun, and
Feather saw what was curious to her, yet what, as she thought upon
it, pleased her mightily. Thoughtful and far-sighted was old Feather.
What she saw was a green carpet on a little portion of the field near
the hut, and, looking at it closely, she saw that it was made up of
shoots and spears of the millet and the barley, for in her years she
had learned discernment, and knew them well, even as they grew in
greenness. Then came to her a great idea. She and old Ox would not
trample upon the green space, but would let the plants grow and ripen
their seeds there. “So I shall have more seeds for the winter,” thought
she, “and shall not have to go afar for a part of them, at least.” And
so they guarded the patch of barley and millet, and it grew lustily,
and the seeds ripened, and from the fruitful patch old Feather garnered
in the autumn quite a store of seeds, to add to that which she gleaned
in long journeyings across the plain, and between the rocks where a
little soil might be, or in the forest openings. Long and deeply did
Feather ponder over this thing when the winter came again, and she and
Ox, well fed, huddled and talked or slept in their skins beside the
fire in the clod-covered hut. Seeds she had in abundance, and from her
store she filled two bags--one of barley, and one of millet--picking
these seeds carefully one by one from the others with which they were
mixed. To old Ox she told of the strange thing she was going to do,
and he promised to aid her, for well had he learned, through the long
years, of the shrewdness and wisdom of the faithful woman he had taken
in his lusty youth.
To Limp and me, as well as to old Ox, her husband, Feather told her
plan, because she knew that we cared for her, and would not deride her;
and, as for me, I became almost as earnest and curious as she herself
over the outcome of what she was to do. Why should not something come
of that? Plants grew from the seed--we all knew that--and why should
we not put the seeds where we wanted the plants to grow? But only old
Feather had thought of that.
And the spring came again, and the warm rains, and carefully old
Feather scattered her seeds all over the little field, with its scant
covering of short grasses here and there. The barley she scattered
on half of the field, and the millet on the other. I was there when
she did it, and even scattered some of the seed myself, for the field
was not so very little, after all. Nearly a score of yards across, it
must have been. And, after the seed was sown, we sat down beside the
hut to talk. Then to the feast spread for them suddenly the keen-eyed
birds, the pigeons, and even some of the pheasants and many smaller
things. Old Feather ran yelling, and waved a skin at them, and they
flew away, only to return when she came from the field, for the seeds
showed everywhere but too plainly, and were too inviting. Then happened
something because of what was observed of Feather, but did for good far
more than she intended. The seeds must be hidden! She found a little
fallen tree, a great branch to which still clung the dried leaves,
and, I aiding her, we dragged it all over the field, by its trunk, the
ragged points and ends of the limbs tearing up the earth, not deeply,
but enough, and so hiding all the seeds beneath the ground. Then the
birds came no more, though old Ox was watchful and ever ready with his
bow.
And as soon as the sun smote down and warmed the earth, though the
snows still came at times, there came sprouts from the soil all over
the little field, and then it became all a vivid green, and later there
was sent up a broad waving mass of the green plants, which yellowed as
the autumn came, and the seeds formed, and Feather, the wonderful old
woman, had, all together, and close beside her hut, such store of seed
as would have taken many weary leagues of search to gather and long
carrying in all weather. The birds came again as the grain ripened; but
the field was guarded by old Ox and me, and great sport we had in the
shooting. A wonderfully good bait for the birds which were best to eat
was the grain field of old Feather. And all the grain there was she
gathered and put into the skin bags. It was good to see old Ox then.
Somehow very close together were these two old creatures, and he was
proud.
“There is none like Feather,” he said to me. “Her neck wrinkles are
fairer than the beads of the girls.”
And all the tribe wondered and admired, and much desired such store of
seed as was in the hut of old Ox and Feather. And others would do as
she had done; and that year they garnered many seeds, and stored them,
and when the spring came again they cleared a field on the plain close
to the hillside and near the village, and made a high fence of brush
about it to keep out the wild beasts at night, and there planted the
seed. The grain grew and ripened, and the children guarded the field
to keep away the flocks of hungry birds; and with the autumn came such
store of seeds as the tribe never had owned before. The winter might be
cold, and the snow lie deep, and the hunting be bad, but there would in
time be no starving in the huts, for with each year the field was made
larger, and the crop the greater. But old Feather joined not with the
others. She but worked in her own little field, and pondered much and
planted carefully.
And old Ox became very feeble and died, and we carried him into the
hills, and heaped many stones upon him, that the prowling beasts might
not reach him, and promised Feather that some day we would lay her
beside him, for so she asked us. Feather then lived alone beside her
little field; but an abundance she had brought to her of fish and game,
because of what she had done for all of us, and because she had such an
abundance of good grain to furnish for the seeding.
There was a great marsh perhaps two leagues away from where we lived,
beside the river which ran beside the cliffs, and this opened on a
great creek which ran into our river after it had reached the plain.
In the midst of the marsh was an island with not many trees but much
shrubbery upon it, and all sorts of plants and grasses. Once old
Feather had gone to the island in the later autumn, when the marsh was
frozen over, for it was dangerous and avoided by all at other times,
and there had found, not only much millet and barley, but another
seed which grew a little like the barley, but with shorter husks and
prickles to it, and another kind of seed. She had gathered but little
of this seed; but it had proved most toothsome and best of all seeds to
eat. The wheat, she called it. Much she longed for this seed, that she
might plant it in her field, and raise plants of this kind, but she was
too old and tired for such a journey now, and so I, who cared for the
old couple who had done so much for the clan, made promise that some
day I would get it for her. And this word I did not forget.
There came a day, when it was early autumn still, that I had great good
fortune in the hunt soon after the sun had risen. There was a fog upon
the plain where the deer and the urus and other wild things of the
grass eaters fed, and no wind to carry my scent; and before daylight
I crept far out on the wild meadow, for well I knew the way, even in
darkness, and hid myself in a little clump of bushes near the forest. I
carried my strongest bow and the sharpest and best of my flint arrows.
So I lay hidden and silent, and soon I could hear, very close beside
me, the sound of moving, feeding things. And slowly, very slowly, the
fog thinned, and more light came.
Not ten yards from me--so close that it seemed impossible he could not
have felt me near, nor caught my scent, broad side toward me--fed a
great stag leading his does. Already, before the fog lessened, I had
prepared myself--one knee on the ground, and arrow notched for whatever
hap might come with the light. Never was afforded fairer mark so close.
I held my aim upon where the heart of the stag should be, and drew
with all my strength until the great bow groaned, and the head of the
arrow was beside my hand, and then I released it--I, the strongest of
bowmen. With the loud twang there came a great snorting, and the does
were gone. Not so the huge stag. He leaped far aloft, and gave a mighty
bleat, and rolled to earth, thrashing about in his death agony. I had
driven the arrow through his heart, and so mightily that the arrow-head
stuck out on the farther side!
I ran to the village, and called aloud to the men, and we brought the
stag slung beneath a great pole borne on the shoulders of half a dozen
of us at either end. A great feast of venison had the whole clan that
morning. Much I ate, and then I slept a little; but the sun was not
yet at its highest when I awoke refreshed and strong, and full of
vauntingness. I said to myself, “I will do yet another thing this day.
I will go to the great marsh, and get for old Feather the strange new
seed she wants.” So I said to old Feather, and I spoke vauntingly:
“Already to-day have I killed a great stag, and we have much meat. More
yet will I do before the darkness comes. I will go to the island in the
marsh and gather for you as nearly a bagful as I can of the new kind of
seeds that you need, and will bring the bag to you, that you may keep
the seeds for the spring planting.”
And I threw out my breast.
But Feather cried out that I should not go. Very treacherous was the
marsh, she said, and its sand and its black slime had sucked down to
death many beasts which ventured into it. I must wait until the winter
came, and the marsh was frozen, so that a man might walk upon it
safely. True, there might not be any of the seeds left, for the birds
would have taken most of them, but with the few she had she could raise
a little crop, and the next year there would be an abundance for the
planting. But I only laughed at her. I, Scar, was vain, and thought it
an easy thing for me to do.
Still, after I had left Feather, there was almost a little fear in me.
I knew that many beasts had perished in the marsh, and that in past
times more than one person who had hunted along its edges, and maybe
ventured a little way into it after some wounded game, had never been
seen in the village again; but I was proud, and would not give up the
venture. I sought, however, one of the very old men, Three Tooth, who
had been a great hunter and very daring in his youth, and who, I
thought, might give me good advice as to the way I should take to get
to the island safely. He was very old, and mumbled as he talked, but
from him I learned that once he had reached the island in midsummer,
though after a most perilous journey, leaping from tussock to tussock,
where from the land to the east of the island they rose more closely
than elsewhere; but he raised his thin arms, and shook his wrinkled
hands, and warned me in his cracked voice against trying to make the
journey. Barely had he come back from the island with his life. Once
he slipped as he leaped, and the black ooze and sucking sand caught
him; and had there not been on the tussock from which he slipped a
deep-rooted overhanging willow, to a limb of which he clung, and by aid
of which he at last pulled himself out, he would surely have been lost.
He begged me not to go, but I told him that I had resolved, and so he
told me again the way he had taken, but as I left him he was shaking
his head and mumbling wildly.
One of Feather’s skin bags I took, and fastened it to my skin belt,
that I might not be bothered with the carrying of it, and, besides it,
only my flint spear, the long, strong staff of which I thought might
aid me in my leaping or in balancing upon the tussocks. Across the
plain I went until I reached the eastern side of the great marsh, in
the midst of which rose the island--not very high, but showing green
with its shrubs against the dreary gray stretch of little ponds and
black mud and brown rushes which lay between it and where I stood. It
was true, as the old man had told me, that there stretched irregularly
across this space a line of little uprising mounds and tussocks,
upon some of which were stunted willows growing, but they were not
as close together as I could have liked, and all seemed desolate and
threatening. However, the sun shown brightly, and some of the scummy
pools were glittering in a way, and I felt a little braver than I would
have had the day been gloomy, and so set my teeth together and started
to make the passage.
There was shallow water between me and the nearest uprearing hummock;
but I felt the bottom with my spear, and found it to be safe enough,
and waded out easily to the hummock, which was gray and grassy, and
firm beneath my feet. The next was farther away; but again I felt the
bottom with my spear, and again I waded, and once more landed easily.
And so from hummock to hummock I waded, sometimes leaping when the dry
places were near together, always feeling my way carefully with my
spear, but going forward rapidly. I laughed then at the foolish fears
of the people of the village.
“It is but an old tale,” I shouted aloud in my glee. “It is but a
fearsome story invented by the old men and women. A child might wade to
the island.”
I was within a hundred yards of it. I leaped to the next hummock and
across it, and again thrust down my spear. The water was shallow now
all the way to the shore. But, though I thrust it in to the butt, I
could reach no solid bottom through the black ooze. It clung to the
spear, and strength was required even in pulling out the slender shaft.
Now I thought deeply, and something like a fear came to me again.
Between me and the island’s shore there rose in almost a straight line
a series of sedgy tussocks within leaping distance of each other,
but some of them were small, and I feared unstable in their rooted
anchorage. However, I must try to cross upon them. They might all be
solid. And I must take them with a rush, leaping from one to another
before there could be time for any settling. I braced myself at the
hummock’s edge, holding my spear crosswise in front of me, to assist
me as a balance, and leaped forward in a mad race for the firm land.
From tussock to tussock I sprang, each affording stoutness enough for
the next leap, though some I could feel sway beneath my feet beneath
the thrusting force, and so desperately I gained my way until I leaped
triumphantly for the last, a little sedge-tufted uprising not six feet
from the shore. It turned beneath my feet!
I did not fall, but my feet and legs shot straight downward into the
black ooze, and I stood erect there in water less than a hand’s-breadth
deep, but engulfed nearly to my hips. For a moment I did not seem in
such a dreadful strait. There was the firm land so near me that I could
reach it with my spear; and surely I, strongest man in a tribe where
were many strong ones, could, some way, pull myself from the clutching,
and flounder out to safety. I laid the spear crosswise upon the bottom
in front of me, that I might press upon it as a sort of leverage, and
bore down hardly, and strove to lift my right leg to the surface. I
could not. The spear but sank into the ooze, affording no resistance,
and the leg seemed held in an awful grip such as I never before had
felt. I tried to lift the other, but it would not come from the clasp
of the monster beneath. My struggling but sank me more deeply. That
would not do. I stood motionless, thinking that perhaps I would sink
no deeper. If I could but remain thus, even though I should suffer,
they would--since all the village knew of my quest--come at least to
the border of the marsh, in the morning, to seek for me, and would hear
my shouting. It might be then that they would devise some means of
reaching and rescuing me. I made note of a thong in my skin leggings
below the waist, and so waited, shouting all the time, with a little
hope that some hunter might be passing along by the distant shore. But
there came no answer. Rarely did the hunters seek the water birds of
the marsh. I looked at the thong again. I could not see it! Though I
was making no move, the quicksand of the ooze was drawing me steadily
downward. I lost my wits. I sought to rush to the solid land by some
huge effort of main strength and force, but there was nothing beneath
my feet to aid me, and I sank deeper and deeper. When my struggling
ceased, I was engulfed to my shoulders. Even to free my arms I must
uplift them, and I knew that the end of me was very near. I held them
aloft for a little time, and then, wearied, let them drop into the
water and upon the ooze of the bottom, where they rested, sinking
slowly.
But at the end, brave men are always brave. I shouted at the ooze and
quicksands. They should not take my life! They could not, for my life
would be gone before they had all my body. There was the water, only
half a foot of it, but enough, and of all deaths, drowning I knew was
the easiest. I had seen men nearly drowned whom we had saved just in
time, and they had told me that such a death must be pleasant. The very
head alone was above the water now. I whooped defiance.